Chapter 15

Night had fallen while Lindon browsed the Lesser Treasure Hall. He could tell why the Kazan disciple was furious; obviously he hadn’t made it to the top in time. He couldn’t swallow the idea that an Unsouled could succeed somewhere he’d failed.

“You’re making a ruckus in my hall,” Elder Rahm said, and the cold in his voice made even Lindon shiver. The Kazan curbed his anger, bowing.

“Apologies, elder. I forgot myself. I am Kazan Ma Deret, and I have had my honor trampled by the trash behind you.”

Deret glared at Lindon, but Lindon was already sliding away down the side of the porch, clutching his bundle of seven white banners. The Kazan disciple turned as though to stop him, but Rahm placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“By ignoring me in favor of your rage, you have dishonored me,” Elder Rahm said. “Explain. How has an Unsouled insulted an Iron?”

Deret looked briefly surprised, as well he might; even in the Wei clan, anyone with an iron badge would have been able to dispose of Lindon as they pleased without question. Lindon’s own grandfather wouldn’t have stood up for him as Elder Rahm had just done.

But he couldn’t rely on others to defend him, especially not from the Heaven’s Glory School. However Rahm felt, the other elders certainly wouldn’t be excited about an Unsouled joining their ranks. That suited him. Once he found the Sword Sage’s disciple, he was gone.

Until then, he needed to defend himself.

Lindon slipped in between the Lesser Treasure Hall and another building, its stone walls slick with the appearance of rainwater. He stood over a flower-bush, in the center of one of those densely packed gardens he’d noticed before. As soon as he was out of sight from the street, he scrambled to untie his bundle.

Seven three-foot poles attached to purple banners spilled over the grass, but they weren’t the only contents of the treasure he’d taken from the hall. A pair of polished wooden placards followed the banners, each the size of Lindon’s hand and banded with script-circles that wrapped around each edge. Ward keys.

He slipped both keys into the sash at his waist and scurried around the edges of the garden, stabbing poles into soft earth. Boundary formations worked on the same principle as smaller script-circles: if they were evenly placed in a ring, they would activate the vital aura in an area to fuel some result. If their placement was too sloppy the boundary wouldn’t trigger at all, and it would only work at peak efficiency if the banners were a precisely equal distance apart.

Lindon didn’t need peak efficiency. He needed whatever he could get.

When the seventh banner was placed, Lindon initiated the script on the back. It flared blue-white…and, a second later, the other two banners visible to him through the undergrowth flashed as well.

The madra rushed out of him all at once, almost exhausting his spirit. He stumbled as he walked away, only holding himself upright with a hand on the wall. In his mind’s eye, the light traveling through his madra channels was dangerously dim.

Before he’d eaten the orus spirit-fruit, he wouldn’t have been able to activate this boundary at all. Even now, though a Copper could likely use it with ease, he had to be careful.

He suppressed the instant longing he felt for all the other treasures inside—the ones that would advance him to Copper, or that he could use without feeling like he might lose control of his body at any moment. He had chosen, and now he would prove his choice useful.

As he left, he glanced back at the boundary. He didn’t feel anything from the boundary, as he carried the ward keys with him, but a faint suggestion of white haze had gathered between the boundaries. He even thought he heard a distant eagle’s cry.

He’d lived among a White Fox aura his entire life, and he could tell when it was gathering.

When he rounded the building again, Kazan Ma Deret was stating the facts of his case. “I saw Shet die. He lost himself, crying and moving in circles, until he finally threw himself at the feet of a Remnant and begged it to kill him. That is what the Trial did to a strong, honorable sacred artist. I ask you now, how could that trash have possibly survived where Shet did not?”

More than ever, Lindon was glad he hadn’t tried to walk up those steps. They sounded brutal.

“It seems he has come to answer for himself,” Elder Rahm said, turning to squint in Lindon’s direction.

Lindon squared his shoulders, drawing himself up to his full height. Deret was a year or two older than he was, but he looked the Kazan straight in the eyes. “Do the Irons of the Kazan Clan have nothing better to do than oppress their juniors?”

Elder Rahm turned toward him slowly, like a tree bending in the wind. Kazan Ma Deret looked like he was about to erupt.

“Very well,” Lindon said. “I’ll give you some pointers. Elder Rahm, will your humble disciple be punished if I injure a peer in the course of a supervised duel?”

Deret’s face turned slowly red, and madra clenched over his shoulders, forming squarish boxes of rippling haze. The hammer on his badge said he was a Forger, and the Kazan walked the Path of the Mountain’s Heart. He would be able to conjure weapons of crushing force. Even half-formed, the constructs floating over his shoulder could smash Lindon’s limbs to pieces.

“Are you sure about this, boy?” Elder Rahm asked.

“I can’t render any merits to the Heaven’s Glory School if I can’t even put down a dog from the Kazan Clan,” Lindon said, bowing over his fists.

Deret choked out his own agreement to the duel, all but incoherent with rage.

For once, Lindon’s appearance worked in his favor. He looked like he was eager to fight, even as his hands shook and cold sweat ran down the back of his neck. He hated provoking people like this, especially people capable of crippling him, but he needed Deret angry enough to follow. And he was confident in his plan. Well, reasonably confident.

His mind spat out a dozen ways this could go wrong, eroding his certainty by the second, but he was committed now. Elder Rahm raised one ancient hand in the air, even as Kazan Deret’s Forged madra began to take on shape and definition. They were definitely bricks, appearing line by line as though sketched in midair, and they would gain heft and weight as soon as he finished Forging them. For now, they remained floating.

“To incapacitation or surrender,” Elder Rahm reminded them. Lindon leaned onto the balls of his feet, shifting his weight as though he meant to dash with all his speed straight toward Deret.

A blinding golden light flashed from the elder’s hand even as he called, “Begin!”

Lindon turned and ran.

Most Forged madra did not float. Soulsmiths had to craft their constructs with special techniques in order to get them to levitate, and Mountain’s Heart bricks were very dense. The Kazan used their Forgers to build walls, constructing intricate scripted arrays to keep the madra from dissipating.

So Deret couldn’t simply will his bricks to blast Lindon from a distance, which was the only reason why Lindon had a chance. But he was an Iron. He could simply throw them.

Without looking behind him, Lindon ducked to one side just as a solid brick smashed into the stones at his feet, blasting into rolling pebbles of Mountain’s Heart. He felt the impact through his feet, and it seemed to rattle the air like thunder. Even the stone it landed on showed a faint crack.

Lindon’s frantic, heavy breaths had very little to do with physical exertion. He had started only a few dozen yards from the edge of the Lesser Treasure Hall, and in the seconds it had taken him to cover that distance, Deret had almost destroyed his legs.

As soon as he crossed the corner, stepping into the dense garden, he snatched the ward key from his belt. Otherwise, he didn’t slow down; the Iron would be only a breath behind him, and he would have another brick ready to hurl.

Lindon dove into the bushes and waited.

Sure enough, Deret followed a second later, one brick raised in his hand, another forming over his shoulder. He stopped when he saw the garden.

Lindon couldn’t allow him to inspect the area for too long, so he rolled away from the bush, intentionally shaking its leaves. A brick blasted the bush to pieces, shredding the branches and tightening the bands of fear around Lindon’s throat. If Deret didn’t approach, if he just stood there at the mouth of the alley and threw bricks…

“I knew a Wei coward wouldn’t fight,” Deret called, a freshly formed brick dropping into his hand. “All you have are your tricks…but do you even know any? Did they teach the Path of the White Fox to an Unsouled?”

Lindon trembled as he stared at the spot where he’d hidden the formation banner. Deret was one step from crossing the boundary. But if Lindon moved again, he’d need the luck of a Gold to avoid getting smashed to pieces by a brick.

The leafy branches of the undergrowth had prevented Deret from finding him so far, along with the barely-perceptible distortion the White Fox aura left in the air, but if he moved, Deret would see him for sure. There was one thing he could try, the same old trick every child tried when playing with their friends in the woods. He could throw a rock.

Lindon reached into one of the smaller pockets in his pack, where he usually kept a few halfsilver chips, and grabbed something small. He lobbed it out from behind his hiding-space.

It was the glass bead that Suriel had given him. Its blue flame shone like a tiny star.

Deret whipped his arm forward like a striking viper, reacting with a speed that made Lindon instantly glad he hadn’t tried to make a break for it, but he stopped before the brick left his hand. He stared at the rolling marble for a second as though trying to figure out what it was. He took a single step forward, his foot landing on grass.

When the boundary activated, the White Fox aura that had gathered in the atmosphere ignited. Lindon saw it as though he looked into someone else’s dream: the blue flame of the bead split again, and again, until seven illusory blue stars spun around Deret’s head. He swung the brick at them, staggering away, but his feet actually took him deeper into the boundary.

He spun around at the cry of a bird, only to see—instead of an alley wall—an endless forest that stretched out for miles.

Lindon observed all this as though it were painted in front of him. He witnessed it all clearly, even as Deret launched his brick at the descending talons of a swooping Remnant. The Forged madra sailed over the rooftops of the Heaven’s Glory School, vanishing in the distance.

Though Lindon could see it, it deceived him no more than a painting would have. The ward key shielded him from the effects of the dream aura, protecting him as long as he carried it.

So as Kazan Ma Deret screamed and battled with creatures in a dream, Lindon slipped away. He had to lean on the rainstone wall to even leave the alley; the last minute had taken more energy from him than the entire trip up the mountain. He slipped around the corner of the Lesser Treasure Hall to avoid any stray bricks, then slumped down against the wall, every muscle in his body trembling out of control. He let his eyes drift shut.

“The Heaven’s Glory School is very strict about preventing its disciples from killing one another,” Elder Rahm said. Lindon pried his eyes open and tried to stand, to show some modicum of respect. The old man didn’t seem to care.

“Otherwise, we mostly leave our students to their own devices. You should be careful now. There is plenty young Deret can do to you short of killing you.”

A tiny object, flashing blue, rolled out of the garden and along the stones of the road. The elder stared at Suriel’s bead even as it came to a stop, its bright blue flame shining steadily.

Lindon leaned over and picked it up. “I apologize, elder. This is merely a toy left to me by my mother.”

“A strange toy,” Rahm said softly. “I would not lower myself to steal from a child, but I would like to examine this bead someday. When you have settled in to the school.”

Lindon attempted a shaky bow. “I owe you at least that much, Elder Rahm. For your advice and for the treasure, which has already saved my life once.”

The elder chuckled as he walked around the alley. “Yours was a very clever choice.” He paused before he was out of sight, catching Lindon’s eye. “But cleverness is an unstable foundation. Wisdom, loyalty, strength…in the sacred arts, only these things are firm.”

Then he ducked into the garden, and a second later, the illusory bird-calls and shrieks from the White Fox boundary faded away. He must have removed one of the banners. Kazan Ma Deret’s labored breathing echoed between the buildings.

“The victor of your contest is Wei Shi Lindon, by virtue of incapacitation. As it was a duel for honor, to seek revenge or recompense would shame you greatly, and by extension my Heaven’s Glory School. I will not allow you to bring shame to my school, do you understand?”

Elder Rahm was clearly speaking for Lindon’s benefit, and he was grateful. With Rahm’s protection, he might actually last long enough among this school to find the Sword Sage’s disciple.

“He did not fight me honorably!” Deret insisted, his voice filled with anger.

“Was it honorable for an Iron to challenge a boy at the Foundation stage?” A snap resounded through the alley, and Deret yelped. “This was foolishness, and I want no more of it.”

Lindon hid himself inside the Lesser Treasure Hall as Deret left the alley. If the Kazan knew that Lindon had overheard that lecture, he would be further shamed, and would have one more reason to pursue his feud. Lindon wouldn’t be able to endure attacks from an Iron forever.

After Deret left, the elder emerged with a bundle of purple banners in his arms. “Take care of these, and don’t leave them lying about. I will confiscate them if I feel you have not valued them properly.”

With further thanks, Lindon took his banners.

Another disciple was helpful enough to guide him to the quarters for initiates, which were nothing in comparison to his home back in the Wei clan. It was only one room, with a thin mattress and hardly enough space to lie flat.

His pack was stuffed with everything he could think to bring, from lights to ink to travel food, but he hadn’t brought a change of clothes. Heaven’s Glory School required its disciples to wear clothes indicating their station, and these were provided. Two identical outfits—white and gold, with a red sash—sat folded on top of his thin bed.

“You receive one spirit-fruit and two Clearblood elixirs when you arrive, and again every half a year,” the disciple reminded him while handing over his room key. “You’ll get yours from the Outer Disciple Hall in the morning, it’s up the mountain at the very center. The road heads straight for it. Eventually you’ll have duties assigned to you, but for now, you’re expected to cycle twice a day and keep practicing your Path.”

Those had the feel of an official declaration, but what he said next sounded much more formal. “Watch out for the more advanced disciples. They’ll take what they can from you, and if you don’t know anyone at the school, they won’t hold back.”

Lindon took the advice to heart.

After the massive ring of light around Mount Samara had begun to dim, but before dawn rose over the peak, Lindon was already waiting in front of the Outer Disciple Hall. He huddled around one corner, letting the building break the icy wind. Even so, he had to cycle his madra to keep from shivering.

An hour or so later, after the sun peeked over the horizon, a man with a short gray beard and some mixed black in his hair came strolling up to the hall, carrying a heavy key. He stopped when he saw Lindon, an amused smile on his lips.

“Wei Shi Lindon?” he asked.

Lindon pressed his fists together and bowed. “This disciple greets you, elder.”

“Only new disciples are so eager. I am Elder Anses, and I will assign you your chores during your stay with us.” As though the cold didn’t touch him, Anses took his time unlocking the door and lighting an oil lamp before ushering Lindon inside. He accepted gladly.

The first room of the Outer Disciple Hall was scarcely bigger than Lindon’s room, and packed with rows of shelves, stacked drawers, and desks covered in paper, tablets, and scrolls. There were other doors in the back, but Anses didn’t head for them; he squeezed by Lindon, sliding open a drawer and removing a shallow wooden box from inside.

He walked over to his desk and made a note before handing the box to Lindon. “Fate was kind to you. The middle of the year is coming soon, so these won’t have to last you long.” He slid open the lid, revealing a pair of round pills colored in swirls of blue and white, next to a fruit like a miniature golden pear.

“These Clearblood pills are refined from a unique blend of herbs grown only here on the mountain,” Anses said, in a tone that suggested he’d given this speech many times. “They will remove impurities from your core and from your blood, increasing the speed of your cycling and preparing you to advance to the next stage. Take one and cycle it for at least three days before taking the second, although you may wish to save the second until you are attempting to advance.”

He pointed to the pear. “The spirit-fruits we give to disciples are different depending on the year’s harvest, but you’re exceptionally lucky this year. One of our elders happened to find a thousand-year dawnfruit tree just on the other side of the mountain. The dawnfruit has absorbed the vital aura of heaven and earth for centuries, and it will nourish your soul directly. I recommend you wait until completely digesting at least one Clearblood pill before eating the fruit.”

After hearing those descriptions, Lindon slid the box out of the elder’s grip before Anses had quite released it. He slid the lid closed, cradling the box like an infant. The only thing he wanted to do was run back to his room and cycle, especially before Deret came hunting for him, but he had one question first. “An elder found this outside the valley? He actually left Sacred Valley?”

Elder Anses grimaced. “I forgot myself. We try not to speak of the outside world to disciples until they’re ready. You’ve heard that the land around Sacred Valley is all wild and untamed?”

Lindon nodded.

“But have you also heard that there are people living outside?”

“I have.” His clan had sold crates of orus fruits to the Fallen Leaf School for generations, and always they were told that the fruit was a delicacy to the people outside the valley. As a child, Lindon had never thought particularly hard about how people living in a forsaken wilderness could afford to buy sweet delicacies.

“Then you’re better informed than most,” Anses said. “Many families don’t tell their children that there’s anything beyond the mountains. And for good reason.” He rolled up his sleeve, revealing an arm that had been absolutely mangled. Huge chunks of flesh were missing from the forearm, so that Lindon could see tendons and bone pressing directly underneath the skin. The upper arm, just under the shoulder, had been shredded by what looked like three claws.

It had clearly happened years ago, as the skin had grown back and the man’s hand was in perfect working condition, but the shock of the sight was a slap in Lindon’s face.

Unperturbed, the elder slowly rolled his sleeve back down. “I’ve been outside Sacred Valley for a total of six hours. I was lucky not to lose an arm. The man who discovered the goldfruit tree disappeared after returning four baskets of fruit to the school. He said he was checking the tree one more time, and he never came back.”

“People live out there?” Lindon asked in a hushed whisper. If it wasn’t safe for a Jade, how could anyone raise children?

“Only nomads,” he said dismissively. “Barbarians. They have tamed some sacred beasts, and they roam around in caravans avoiding the greatest dangers. They’re hardly better than Remnants themselves, acting according to their base instincts with no civilization to speak of. Only savages can live in such a savage land, while culture flourishes here.” He gave Lindon a fatherly smile. “Be grateful for what you have. I expect you to work hard, use those resources well, and advance to Copper before Sun Day.”

As Lindon left the Outer Disciple Hall, his imagination swam with thoughts of barbarian nomads and their tame sacred beasts, living in a land so harsh that the Jade elder of a powerful sacred arts school could only survive for hours. He imagined wilderness stretching on to the end of the world…

That may have been what the Heaven’s Glory School believed, but he knew better. Suriel had shown him palaces the size of the whole valley, vast courts, paved roads and rugged taverns. Civilization had taken root somewhere else, not just here. And he’d be the first person from Sacred Valley to see it.

Yerin and the Sword Sage had come in to the valley from the outside, after all. With her guiding him, why couldn’t he make it?

He pictured a savage beast, all teeth and gleaming claws, leaping out of dark trees and shredding his arm until it looked like Elder Anses’. If he thought about that too long he’d lose his courage, so he focused on the elixirs in his arms instead.

Under the dawn light, he made his way back to his room with dreams of Copper filling his head. These pills were the sort of medicine that the Wei clan had never been able to afford, and the spirit-fruit was beyond anything he’d ever heard of. A thousand years’ worth of vital aura? And they had so many they could afford to give some to disciples? The ancestral orus fruit would be nothing next to this.

He had the box tucked under one arm and one hand on his door when something smashed into the side of his chin.

Pain flowered in his head as though his jaw had cracked, swallowing his vision. The box tumbled open, sending the blue-and-white pills spilling onto the ground. Weakly he reached out a hand for them. They were far too valuable to let them get dirty.

A hand reached down past him, plucking both pills from the ground. It gathered up the box as well, which still contained the goldfruit, and lifted them all out of Lindon’s vision.

Those are mine, Lindon tried to say, but his jaw felt as though someone had stuffed it with live coals. Through watery eyes, he squinted into the dawn-lit sky.

Kazan Ma Deret loomed over him, brown hair hanging down into his eyes, iron badge heavy and black against his chest. Before he spoke a word, Deret lashed out with a foot.

Lindon curled up in instinctive reaction, but the kick still landed, slamming into his ribs and arm like the Iron had driven a spike through his elbow and into his chest. He gasped for breath, but his lungs wouldn’t cooperate.

“If this was Kazan territory, you’d be dead.”

Deret spat, and something warm and wet splattered against Lindon’s cheek. He was in far too much pain to even wipe it away. “On Sun Day, you’ll bring another box to me. If you make me come down here to pick it up myself, I might lose my temper. Do you understand me?”

Lindon nodded with his cheek pressed against dirty stone, even though every tiny motion of his head was agony.

Deret snorted in disgust, tossing the empty box down so that it clattered next to Lindon’s face. He stepped heavily on Lindon’s arm as he walked away, his footsteps retreated into the distance as Lindon was swallowed by pain and shame. It was one thing having everyone know that you were weak, but it was many times worse to be beaten like a stray dog and left in the street. He wished desperately to lose consciousness.

Instead, he heard the murmurs of disciples around him. They whispered to one another, but he still caught snatches of their conversation. It was exactly as he’d expected.

“…both new disciples?”

“…too weak…”

“…Unsouled?”

Finally, hands lifted him up by the shoulders, causing him to groan in pain. It was all he could do to avoid screaming.

“Hold on,” the boy carrying him said, and Lindon recognized his voice. It was the disciple that had delivered him to his room the day before. “I’m taking you to the Medicine Hall.”

Lindon wondered how many halls there were in the Heaven’s Glory School, but idle thoughts didn’t survive long amid the sea of pain. The disciple had lifted him off the ground and was carrying him over one shoulder, which was no doubt easy for someone with Iron strength, but every step sent agony shooting through Lindon’s body.

“I thought something like this might happen,” the disciple went on. “I was going to take you to see Elder Anses myself so no one singled you out, but I didn’t think I’d be too late.”

Lindon tried to say I was stupid, but it came out as “Shtupid.”

The disciple grunted. “They let the disciples compete against each other for everything. The strongest rise to the top, and they only want the strongest. As long as nobody dies, the elders don’t care, but I don’t know why they let an Unsouled in here. Even the Coppers will be eyeing you.”

He ascended some steps, which Lindon’s ribs did not appreciate, and then a pair of doors swung open. The smell that wafted out was equal parts metallic blood, putrid sickness, and a sharp herbal scent that Lindon associated with medicine. The moans and muffled screams within were less than comforting.

“Another casualty?” a man asked.

“No, this one wasn’t her.” Lindon’s benefactor laid him down on a bed gently, but the impact still made him choke back a shout.

“New disciple,” he added.

“Ah. Leave him here, we’ve got limbs to sew back on first.”

The disciple tossed a blanket over Lindon and hesitated before leaving.

Gratitude, Lindon said, but it passed his injured jaw in a garbled mess of syllables. The disciple looked at him as though debating whether to say something or not. Finally he let out a heavy breath and leaned closer. “Listen. They don’t let disciples leave once they’re here, not unless something goes really wrong. But you…I don’t think the elders would chase you down if you just left. You’re from a clan, so go home. You won’t die here…but you might find that you want to.”

He left, leaving Lindon thinking fond thoughts of home. His bed was soft, the air didn’t have this permanent chill, and while no one treated him with any respect, they didn’t beat him in the streets either. And this was only the beginning of his journey. The outside world was a thousand times more dangerous.

Lindon’s bed was not private, crammed as it was between dozens of other beds filled with men and women with injuries at least as bad as his own. As his heart grew heavy and he blinked away tears of self-pity, he couldn’t help overhearing a conversation from the bed only inches away.

“We had her cornered,” the girl said through gritted teeth. “She was—go slower, that burns—backed up against a cave. Fifteen of us, one of her. Then she drew her sword, and we were all cut.”

“Was she that fast?” a woman asked. “Bite down on this, it will sting.”

A minute or so passed with the girl groaning in pain before she finally responded. “Not…fast. She’s not an Enforcer, I think. Probably a Ruler. When she drew her sword, we were all cut. Out of nowhere. She didn’t move.”

“The Sage was an Enforcer. Would he take a disciple with a different spirit?”

“How could I guess the thoughts of the Sword Sage? But she cut fifteen of us to the bone in one move, then she ran away. A few Enforcers followed her, since they held up better than the rest of us.”

Lindon gingerly craned his neck to the side, speaking as clearly as he could. “Forgive my curiosity. Where was this?”